Scotland’s win yesterday means that at least I can go on thinking about this year’s Calcutta Cup sweater, although the need for it remains pretty remote. (The match will be at Twickenham, where we never win.) (Still, we only very rarely win our first match of the tournament, as we did yesterday – so one never knows.)

Rachel wasn’t able to watch the match live. She recorded it, and went to great lengths not to know the result before she watched it. And she succeeded, although, leaving Mass this morning, she overheard an aged Irishman asking his friend whether he had watched the rugby, and deduced from the tone of voice that the news might be good, from her point of view. Alexander, who was of course there on the spot, says it was a bit too exciting for him.

I incline, Calcutta-Cup-sweater-wise, towards Kate Davies’ Macrihanish. Tom was wearing it at the EYF last year and it looked rather well. There are other options, including one of Meg’s. Or I could design one myself. It’s nice to think about, and I will go on doing so as long as I can. And if we should win this year, per impossibile, I will make very strenuous efforts to see the cup. I never have.

Today was calmer, and I am a bit more than halfway through the fifth repeat of the centre of Mrs Hunter’s shawl. The line where the centre I am knitting joins the borders which I have already knit, looks really good, far better than a sewn seam could look. I really must get that picture taken. I’m glad I put in the break row, too. I am becoming obsessively anxious about the k2togs at the end of each row, where the join is made. They’re very slightly tricky, because there is a marker to be moved out of the way. And if I drop one, I don’t just have a dropped stitch – the whole join could un-zip.

I have also gone on thinking about EYF-2017 purchases. I am grateful for your comments about the Nila pattern, and I think I have abandoned the idea. If the weather was chilly enough to make the neck and cross-over comfortable, you would want the chest fully covered. I went on through Veronik Avery’s patterns and have flagged (if that’s the word) “Waterhouse”. One of the Ravellers who has done it, added a couple of inches. It’s better that way.

Once having conceived the idea of knitting a Baby Surprise with little skeins of graduated yarn, I got on today to Madeleinetosh “Unicorn’s Tails”. Wow! But I tried Google with a natural-language question about how much yarn I would need for a Surprise, and the answer gave pause even to my extravagant self.

And part of the trouble with this mental exercise is that I keep finding things which it would be simplest to order online. I love Carol Sunday’s “Nancy’s vest” – but why not just order the kit from Sunday, with her own yarn? Last year I went to the EYF with four patterns for shawls/scarves. That was ideal. I was looking for any suitable yarn. I need to think this thing through.